In life it’s sometimes hard to stand out from the crowd... and similarly, with literally hundreds of obstacle course races taking place all across the UK every year, grabbing the attention of the muddied trainer community is getting harder and harder.

Several of the high profile events undertake massive year-long marketing campaigns, spending hundreds of thousands of pounds in the process in order to attract the paying public, whilst others offer a winner’s purse into five figures, in what now is a multi-million pound industry in its own right.

For those events just starting out, just like many an obstacle course runner, it can be difficult to get a sure foothold amongst the stiff competition. As such, some of the newest events are really beginning to push the boundaries of innovation, creativity and (I’m not going to lie...) pain, when devising their strategy for mixing with the big boys.

And none more so, than the Supershot Challenge... the world’s first obstacle course race with a paintball zone included within it.

Yes, you heard it right... a paintball zone!

And last weekend, I was invited by the organisers to run the gauntlet at the inaugural event held at Finmere Airfield, near Milton Keynes.

Now as someone who has taken part in the activity of paintball (incidentally in my former profession as a teacher) I can remember the cutting pain that ran through my body as a group of students shot me close to a dozen times in the back from point blank range. Insult was added to injury when I turned around to see that the hysterical female students who had cut me down were, in fact, on my own team - though what this said about my popularity as a teacher is another story.

As such, when planning for this event, I took some time to consider what I would wear. The balance, in all of the events that I do with the Always With A Smile Foundation, is in weighing up the practicalities of a costume against the distance or effort required in the challenge ahead. With the Supershot Challenge I’d have run in chain mail if I could have gotten away with it, however the 10k multi-terrain course would have left me a broken man well before I’d run into the cross hairs of the course’s sharp shooters.

And so I opted to dress up as V from the film V For Vendetta with only a minimal amount of protection to ensure the Hicks family jewels would live to see another day!

With that said, as I looked around at my fellow competitors prior to the off, that was considerably more than most had to protect them. As a rough estimate I’d say that 80% of the 400 or so entrants took to the course in no more than shorts and T-shirts, some even daring to brave their bare chests in the March sunshine!

The course itself was relatively flat, and much of it ran over the soggy grasslands which surround the airfield. High winds the night before had caused one or two issues in terms of the course layout, an issue which the organisers themselves acknowledged even before the off, however there were plenty of marshals to guide you in the general direction.

Surprisingly heavy on the legs, mainly due to the wet ground and sinking feeling underfoot, the obstacles included what I would describe as the fundamentals of any obstacle course - monkey bars, muddy trenches, water baths, sand bags, commando crawls and other ‘standard issue’ challenges. Admittedly basic in nature, they did break up the course at regular intervals and were enough to satisfy the demands of a novice competitor, though more experienced runners would have undoubtedly seen those hurdles as the starter to the main course.

The paintball zone came as the penultimate challenge, with every entrant donning full face protection on entering the woodland area designated for this part of the course. Four sharp shooters in camouflage gear stalked the zone, and it was only the dull ‘popping’ sound of their paintball firing weapons which hinted at their position.

It was an exhilarating experience to say the least! As a runner you were constantly looking around, scanning the horizon, on the look out for a shooter as the odd scream echoed around the woodland...

But it wasn’t until I took repeated fire to my backside that the memories of my paintball experience as a teacher replayed in my mind like a flashback in a Rambo film. The pain that shot through my body as pellet after pellet exploded in glorious colours over my fleshy behind brought tears to my eyes and yelps from my mouth. At this point my progress through the woodland came to virtual crawl. I did not want to be shot again. To ensure that no one left the course requiring treatment for PTSD, entrants were given the ‘get out’ of raising their hand high in the air if they had received enough punishment for one day and as I examined my bruised body that afternoon the thought that surrender might have been the best option did cross my mind.

On leaving the paintball zone, the main feeling was one of relief. In my opinion, having taken a wallop or two during the last eight years in which the foundation has been in existence, this feature of the Supershot Challenge ranks right up there in terms of fear factor and pain.

But that wasn’t the final obstacle to face competitors as, in a rather innovative idea, on crossing the finish line all entrants had the option of then climbing a two storied frame so that they could leap off a platform on to a giant airbag. Given that this feature was technically an epilogue to the event, it allowed those with an acute sense of vertigo to slip off to collect their winners medal, and other runners to leap with joy at the fact they had survived a world first.

On reflection, do the race organisers have work to do in order to cement itself as a viable obstacle course race? Undoubtedly yes. Has it the potential to make other events sit up and take notice? Most definitely.

Let this be a warning to the established events, the Supershot Challenge and other events like it are gunning for a share in the market through new and more extreme challenges. Make sure you’re not in their sights, or you could find yourselves staring down the barrel of an obstacle race magnum.